Toronto holiday vibe good for buskers

Daniel Arvidson is a well-known name and face around the Newcastle pub and club scene, but his was the last face I expected to see busking in the main street of Toronto yesterday.

I was talking to people about ABC Open at the ABC Newcastle pop-up station so I took this photo with the Snapped: My Town project in mind, because I knew that Daniel busking would "show something special about the Toronto community"

"It's such a great place, Toronto, I love it," Daniel says.

"I come out here specifically to sing to people because I find it like a cross between a sort like a holiday vibe and . . . because I like to sing all of the old songs - I love singing all the old crooning ballads - it gets a great response out here and people love it."

The Toronto 'holiday vibe' is helped along the palm trees stretching out of the ground behind where Daniel is standing at the top of The Boulevarde which leads down a tree-lined street to a glittering jewel-encrusted lake.

"It's different (to Newcastle) for busking," Daniel explains.

"I find that the slower the pace and the more relaxed the pace - which is Toronto, it's very relaxed - the more people can have that time to stop and connect, so I find that as far as busking goes you can connect more.

"The faster paced it is the less people have time to connect, you know, they're usually walking around in their heads, thinking about going to work or coming from work.

"And even when they're on their lunch break they're very consumed with what's going on in their lives."

That ability to connect is even more important, says Daniel, than the ability to sing and play.

"People, whether they're playing in pubs or clubs or busking - maybe whether it's shyness or I'm not sure - they don't look at people, and they don't connect," he says.

"And I find that the moment you can connect with someone, you can look them in the eye and speak to them, well then they hear you and all of a sudden there's this bridge of communication between the two and it's wonderful thing."

The intersection between Toronto's long main street and a lane way that leads off to a nearby shopping mall, is where Daniel finds the best people traffic.

"It's perfect because people can see me coming from all directions," Daniel says, "and I find it really great spot right here because I can get to connect with the most people coming through."

Daniel has been performing around Newcastle and the greater Hunter region since his professional debut gig at The Castle in 1989. He had a massive hit on his hands with the Newcastle Song in 2011 when the Newcastle Knights were in the Grand Final.